by Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos Data from the census touches nearly every aspect of our lives as Vermonters, from political representation, congressional seats and the drawing of district lines to federal funding allocations and how local government officials make important policy decisions, from the Governor’s office all the way down to our local school boards.
I strongly support any actions taken by Attorney General TJ Donovan in resisting the addition of a citizenship question on the census, and thank him for his leadership on this issue.
Including a citizenship question will significantly reduce participation leading to inaccurate population data, which could have significant negative impacts here in Vermont and across the country. The law governing the Census:
- Requires an accurate census count of “persons” not citizens.
- Prohibits The Census Bureau from sharing any personal information collected by the census.
- Thus, there is no way to utilize any additional collected data for enforcement of the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA), as Trump Administration officials have claimed, nor is that data necessary to do so.
The only possible explanation for inclusion of a citizenship question is to skew the data for political gain. When important decisions are being made about how our democracy functions based on census data, we need accurate and reliable population counts.